I blame Mattress Jack Kennedy for these stupid berets. He introduced them for elite troops, if memory serves, and now that all troops are elite troops and heroes by definition, they all have to wear berets. Of course the berets in question are all folded and creased and flopped according to regs, now. The full-face version, as a result, is even sillier than the profile shot above:
Poor devil looks like a stillborn basset hound landed on his head.
Of course, the beret can be worn with style:
Having grown up a half a generation or so after your cohort MJS, I can tell you that my experiences with anyone wearing a beret in civilian life has put the lie to your claim that it can be worn stylishly. Most of the beret wearing types I’ve encountered have been older men looking maintain an ‘artistic’ appearance and in mannerism are of the distinctly officious educated liberal who frequents coffee shops to loudly share what they learned about black holes from NPR.
Now if I could learn to associate them with the angelic beauty of Lauren Bacall…well, that would cause problems of a different sort.
I know one chap of my own cohort who wears a beret with a certain amount of panache. He’s interested in opera, and interesting on the subject — to the extent that the subject can be made interesting. (As somebody once said — there are music lovers, and then there are opera lovers.) He couldn’t care less about black holes, and I have yet to hear him mention NPR.
Apart from him, PA’s characterization of the *male* beret crowd is dead on. Girls in berets are a whole nother thing.
Paul, I saw just a beret-wearer on the F train yesterday morning, and thought the very same thing.
MJS: Exception to the rule, exception to the rule. And he seems like he’s really riding that razor’s edge between pretentiousness and eccentricity. Something to keep an eye on.
chomskyzinn: My general rule is to immediately walk in the opposite direction wherever there is a beret, although I know that can be a bit difficult on a train.
I’m glad we’re still cracking jokes about anything at this late date. To the bitter end, I suppose. The Tillman thing was good enough for a laugh. He went to school with my cousin, also a footballer. He seemed to be a true believer in America, or “murrica” or whatevs. As wrong-headed as he was, he was ten-times the human of any congress-critter who sent him (via duplicity, etc.).
Tillman and his family had quite an awakening. See comment and film link below.
The middle photo is, of course, Pat Tillman, object of military propaganda. Very good documentary about the scam and his patriotic family’s awakening and outrage about the betrayal:
http://m.imdb.com/title/tt1568334/plotsummary?ref_=m_tt_ov_pl
One of the many facts buried about Tillman: he became quite inspired by Chomsky.
Since light topics are current, I pose a non sequitur question for the sages of SMBIVA to answer: Why does the first article of each edition of Counterpunch contain the annoying “continue reading” button? Very occasionally short leading items eliminate the feature.
Did not Che pull off the stylish beret at times?
why in moderation for so long? since friday afternoon. hope moderator is doing well.
best, boink
Moderator has been preoccupied. Sorry!
Word! I’m annoyed by that too but most of all, I’m annoyed by the declining quality of their content. Their weekend edition has 10 articles repeating the same thing and mind you, the wit and humor is totally missing ever since Alex’s death. Not to suck up to our moderator, but they certainly need a bit of SMBIVA’s wit and clever humor to improve their content!